Puppet Theater in Contemporary Indonesia:
New Approaches to Performance Events

Jan Mrazek

They are labelled chapters, but Puppet Theater in Contemporary Indonesia
is actually a collection of twenty four essays, with separate references
and no common index.

As well as the well-known wayang kulit, the essays span a range of
regional, local, and even personal traditions: wayang golek Menak
in Kebumen, wayang gandrung in East Java, wayang among the Sasak of
Lombok, Sukasman's wayang ukur, wong cilik, Sundanese wayang golek
purwa, the shadow theatre of Banyumas, and more.

Themes which receive particular attention include: the politics of wayang
and its integration into the New Order and reformasi; the careers of
individual dalangs and their financial, political and social constraints
and opportunities; and historical changes in performance content,
practice, and reception.

The approaches include Geertzian "thick description", more traditional
ethnographic accounts, and personal narratives. Some of the pieces
are Theory-heavy, with titles such as "Watching Wayang With Spinoza"
and "The Body of Merleau-Ponty", and very occasionally seem more clever
than enlightening.

There should be plenty in Puppet Theater in Contemporary Indonesia
for anyone who wants to understand Indonesian puppet performance as a
network of live and evolving traditions.

Disclaimer: three of the contributors to this volume have performed with
or taught me.